Cancer Prognosis Prompts Dad To Become ‘Napkin Notes Dad’

Gary Callaghan, who has been diagnosed with cancer three times, has earned the moniker “Napkin Notes Dad” for writing 826 notes on napkins to his daughter, Emma.

Callaghan doesn’t expect to be around for Emma to receive all of them. He just wants to ensure that his daughter will have a letter to read at lunch every day until she graduates high school.

Emma’s ritual of opening her lunchbox at school and seeing a handcrafted note from her dad began many years ago. Thus, when doctors informed Callaghan that he only had an eight percent chance of living past five years, he took steps to allow that tradition to continue.

Callaghan hopes that his little expressions of fatherly love will remind Emma that he is always with her, even if he physically leaves this world.

His notes not only serve as an inspiration to Emma, but to others as well. The Facebook page “Napkin Notes Dad,” which features some of Callaghan’s lunch letters, already has more than 40,000 likes.